


This is a Mirror

by fictionalaspect



Category: Bandom, Panic! at the Disco
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Alcoholics Anonymous, Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon Compliant, Cocaine, Drug Addiction, Drug Use, Drugs, Feelings, Gen, Heavy Angst, Past minor character death, Recreational Drug Use, References to Addiction, Rehabilitation, Sobriety, Suicidal Thoughts, Suicide Attempt, Triggers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-01
Updated: 2013-10-01
Packaged: 2017-12-28 04:13:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,918
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/987519
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fictionalaspect/pseuds/fictionalaspect
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Didn't think I'd see you here," Ryan says. He can't keep the bitterness out of his voice. "I thought you didn't believe in God."</p><p>"Sometimes it's nice to think that maybe someone is on your side," Spencer says. "Sometimes I'm okay with the idea of the universe working out a certain way. I mean--fuck you, I don't know, Ryan. I don't know. Showing up distracts me from drinking. Why are <i>you</i> even here?"</p><p>"Spite," Ryan says. He blows out a cloud of smoke.</p>
            </blockquote>





	This is a Mirror

**Author's Note:**

> I cannot emphasize enough how this is not a happy story. This is probably the darkest thing I've ever written. I always said I would never write about addiction and drug abuse-- not because it upset me, but because I knew it would be disturbingly, painfully accurate. There's no other way you can tell the story when you've grown up surrounded by it. 
> 
> Trigger warnings for everything tagged above, including but not limited to: suicidal thoughts, attempted suicide, drug rehab, graphic depictions of drug abuse and addiction, alcoholism, discussion of various treatment programs including Alcoholics Anonymous, angst, discussion of god and pseudo-religion, and I don't even...EVERYTHING. I'M JUST GOING TO WARN FOR EVERYTHING. I wouldn't have included AA specifically in this story, but Spencer's been rather unsubtle about using AA slogans in his written statements, so for the time being I'm going to assume it's his program of choice. Or at least one of them. 
> 
> Thank you to thirstingdragon for reading this over and telling me that yes, it wasn't just a mess of feelings and it was, in fact, a story.

Ryan stares at Spencer across the empty church basement, 6pm on a Sunday and Ryan's just woken up. The scrape of the chairs is loud in the silence as they wait for someone, anyone to talk. 

Ryan doesn't speak. He never talks when he comes here, because he's not really here for this. It's all bullshit, empty promises and lies that never worked for his dad and will never work for him, either. He comes here angry, and he leaves angry. It's masochistic enough to satisfy him.

There are some holes that are too deep to fill. 

"Hi, I'm Spencer," Spencer says eventually. He pauses. Ryan waits for it. He's not here for Spencer, this is Ryan's own fucked up pilgrimage space and as soon as this meeting is done he's going to tell Spencer to sneer at God in his own damn AA meeting. This one belongs to Ryan. 

"I'm an addict, and an alcoholic," Spencer says, and everyone in the room claps, nods along. Someone pats him on the shoulder. Spencer half-smiles. "It's not the first time I've said it," he says. " But sometimes you just don't want to. Sometimes you want to be anywhere but here."

 

Ryan thinks about leaving as soon as the meeting's over, as he's carrying his chair to the stack. He thinks about just ducking out the door and getting into his car and calling Dan; finding something to do and somewhere to be. Doing a few lines. Doing a lot of lines. Drinking margaritas and dressing up in tuxedos to go to the beach and lie there and watch some girls they don't even know record it all on Instagram. 

"Ryan," Spencer says quietly, and Ryan knows he's already lost the battle.

 

They sit on the bench outside the church. It's a nice church, azaleas blooming next to the sculpted flower beds surrounding the palm trees. This is a quiet, wealthy neighborhood. Calm. Ryan comes here because no one will recognize him. 

People far more famous than a washed-up addict from some emo band show up at this meeting all the time, and no one bothers _them_. 

Ryan lights a cigarette. 

"Didn't think I'd see you here," Ryan says. He can't keep the bitterness out of his voice. "I thought you didn't believe in God."

Spencer sighs, and tips his head back to look up at the sky. Ryan watches him. He's been working out. He's toned and healthy-looking. Tan. He looks like he's doing great, until you really look deep into his eyes. 

"I don't," Spencer says eventually. "Or I don't know if I do. I don't believe in Jesus, or Buddha, or what the fuck ever. You know that." 

"And you're still here." 

"Sometimes it's nice to think that maybe someone is on your side," Spencer says. "Sometimes I'm okay with the idea of the universe working out a certain way. I mean--fuck you, I don't know, Ryan. I don't know. Showing up distracts me from drinking. Why are _you_ even here?"

"Spite," Ryan says. He blows out a cloud of smoke. 

_Hope_ , a voice inside of him says. A still, small voice. The one that pops into his head when he's not thinking about anything in particular. He crushes it down.

"I would tell you to suck it up and get over it," Spencer says. "But the more I learn about my own bullshit, the more I think you have every right to be angry at him." 

Ryan frowns. Spencer isn't supposed to agree with him. 

"Don't agree with me," he says. "It's weird. We don't agree about things anymore." 

"Fine," Spencer says. 

A cyclist rides past them, her skin shining with sweat and suntan lotion. Cars roll past them, moving slowly on expensive tires. Nearby, a bird rustles in a low bush. 

"Brendon wants to talk to you," Spencer says. He's got his elbows on his knees, hands clasped, staring down at the asphalt. 

"Brendon Urie can go fuck himself to hell," Ryan says evenly. He's read the article. Oh, he's read it. It took him three days and a hell of a lot of drugs but he made it through and he didn't even tear the pages. He cut them up neatly, with scissors, like a functionally crazy person instead of an out-of-control nutcase. The strips are still sitting in a pile next to his bed. 

Just waiting. 

"Everything he said was true."

"I know it was. That's why he can go fuck himself. Making himself into a fucking saint, just to--to--"

"To take away the pressure on me to be perfect," Spencer says. "To distract the paps from the fact that I'm noticeably missing from our big comeback tour because I fail at being a fucking normal human being."

Ryan shakes his head. "Like Brendon's normal," he says, swallowing hard. Ryan doesn't cry but his throat is doing that awful lumpy thing and he can taste salt and bone on his tongue. "He didn't have to crucify me." 

"He's normal enough. I can't go twenty minutes without thinking about how much I want to go have a drink," Spencer says."We're not even _friends_ anymore and I want to ask you to take me back to your place right now, so we can go get fucked up." 

"No," Ryan blurts out, and then doesn't know why. It would be the perfect crime. It would twist the knife farther in than anything else he could possibly do to Brendon, preaching on high with his beautiful wife and his beautiful dogs and his beautiful...whatever. Whatever the fuck he has. Ryan doesn't know. Brendon probably drinks kale shakes and talks about the meaning of life. Ryan wants to punch him in the face. 

"Don't you want to?" Spencer says. "Isn't that what you _do_ now?" 

"Yeah," Ryan says, standing up to leave. He stubs his cigarette out on the bench, recycled plastic failing to yield to the heat of the cherry. His cigarette butt leaves only a black smear behind. "Yeah, but not with you." 

 

Another meeting. Ryan is still pleasantly drunk from the night before. The man next to him is wearing expensive running shoes and a belly pack. He repeats the Steps very firmly, and taps his toe whenever anyone is speaking. Ryan wants to step on his foot, but he's too lazy. 

He doesn't even know Spencer's there until he's looming behind him, tapping him on the shoulder. Ryan looks up and he's the only one there - everyone else is heading out the door, chairs neatly folded away. He must have dozed off. 

"Bender?" Spencer says. His mouth is set, but he doesn't look as angry as Ryan thinks he should be.

"My entire life is a bender," Ryan says. "The word 'bender' implies that things stop sometimes."

"Put your chair away." 

Ryan shrugs, and does as he's told. 

"Come to breakfast with me," Spencer says. 

"Why? You want to be my _sponsor_?” the thought is suddenly so funny to Ryan that he doubles over laughing. He starts and it just pours out and he can't stop it. Like pot giggles. Like those sudden rainstorms that rush over the desert and leave nothing but muddy earth. 

"No," Spencer says. "I want a drink, and staring at you is a good reminder of why it's not worth it." 

"I always knew you loved me," Ryan says. He's still drunk. Spencer's words only penetrate the thin layer of skin that floats above the real Ryan. The one hiding inside, cloaked in rock and ash, so full of misery that there's nothing to do but to burrow further. 

 

"What do they do to you in rehab?" Ryan says, eating his eggs slowly. Two cups of coffee and he's less drunk, or at least he's more awake. Maybe it's just the eggs.

"They don't do anything _to_ you," Spencer says. He's eating a large breakfast. Eggs Benedict, fried potatoes, corned beef hash on the side, coffee, cranberry juice. A side of fruit. "It's not like shock therapy or something." 

Ryan picks at the fruit bowl and eats all the grapes as he listens to Spencer talk.

"You show up when you realize that you're going to kill yourself, like you're actually in the process of killing yourself, it's not some abstract metaphor, you're absolutely going to fucking die, and they will find your body and it will be three days old," Spencer says calmly. Ryan watches as his fingers shake slightly where they hold his fork. "You show up when you can't take the pain of living anymore. And then they try to help you." 

"But what do they do," Ryan says. "My dad. They just--shoved him in rooms and shit. I don't really know what they did, but it was obviously all bullshit, because we both know how well that turned out."

"Thirty or forty years is a long time in medicine," Spencer says. "It's different now." 

"They didn't force you to make sock puppets and talk about how Jesus is going to save you from drinking?"

Spencer blinks. "Your dad did that?"

"No," Ryan says. He chances stealing a slice of apple. The fruit is good. He's kind of forgotten what fruit tastes like when it's not mixed with alcohol. He should go to the supermarket or something. "I'm just making shit up."

"Uh," Spencer says. He sips his coffee. "Yeah. There were no sock puppets." 

"Did you cry? Did they make you sit in rooms with other dudes and cry about your inner pain?"

"Yeah."

"Well then fuck it," Ryan says, taking a large sip of his coffee, unconsciously mirroring Spencer. "That's not going to happen. I don't cry." 

"Maybe you should."

"Maybe you should shut the fuck up."

Spencer shrugs. 

They eat the rest of their breakfast in silence. 

 

"What I don't understand is how Brendon thinks he can hate me more than I hate myself," Ryan says. It's late sunrise on the Pier. There's a meeting in twenty minutes down the road, inside an old diner-turned-art gallery. The owner has 22 years soberiety, and offered it up for a new meeting to fill a gap in the area schedule. "Like, what is he trying to pull? So I'm a terrible person. We all know that. Can't he just go to therapy or something?"

Ryan didn't intend to meet Spencer and Ryan knows that Spencer sure as hell didn't intend to meet Ryan but here they are, so--well, here they are, as Spencer's dad used to say. Ryan doesn't voice the thought out loud. He wonders if Spencer's thinking of the same memory. 

"Brendon doesn't really get it," Spencer says. He toes at the sand, making a wide, sweeping arc with his bare feet. He's wearing flip-flops today. Obviously not going for a run. "He tries, but he doesn't get it." 

"So he's the hero and I'm the asshole control-freak junkie," Ryan muses. "And you're the tragic lost soul." 

"Yeah." 

"Nice. Must be a good place to be." 

"Not really." Spencer stares out at the water. "He could have written that article about me, and it would have been just as true. About all the times I let him down and didn't show up. About all the times I walked away when he needed me. We _all_ treated him like that, Ryan. Sometimes. I should have stood up to you. Instead I just got high, and pretended everything was fine." 

Ryan stares out at the ocean. 

"He's on tour right now promoting an album that I showed up to less than half the sessions for," Spencer says. "When I did show up, I was high or drunk. Every time. It's like, what's worse, you know? Being the person who cut him down, or being the person who walked away and just let him fall?" 

"Obviously Brendon's figured out his own answer to that question," Ryan murmurs. 

"Look, there's no prize for being the worst alcoholic," Spencer says. "There's just different ways of fucking up." 

"Yes there is," Ryan whispers. That lump is back again, salt and ash and the faint smell of whiskey. "You get that prize when you know exactly what you are, and then you have kids anyway." Ryan doesn't want to feel any of this. He's spent years and years practicing how not to feel. 

Spencer looks over at him, regret and sympathy playing across his features.

"This is bullshit," Ryan says, standing up, because fuck, he _is_ going to cry. He's going to cry and somehow the idea of crying in front of Spencer is worse than all the other horrible things he can think of combined. It's worse than plane crashes and shark attacks and alligators and Ebola and everything else because it means that Ryan _is cracking_. It means that his shell isn't working right anymore. 

He can't let Spencer see what's really inside.

"Ryan!" Spencer yells, as Ryan runs back to his car, keys in his hand, leaving his shoes on the beach. "Ryan, don't--" 

Ryan ignores him, shoving his keys in the ignition and reversing as fast as he can. His eyes sting, and not just because he has the top down. 

 

Ryan spends four hours crying in the back of a supermarket parking lot. He can't breathe and he can't think and the only thing he can do is cry, helpless and shaking. 

It is all Spencer's fault. 

 

Ryan dresses up that night. He does half a bag of coke before he even gets into the shower and then when he's nice and high he puts his favorite suit on. His best shoes. Cufflinks. 

He will not be an ugly corpse. 

The night is long and blurry. More coke. There's a free bar at a release party. Ryan takes whatever's handed to him without even examining it. He thinks he might be rolling. Who knows. There's so many party drugs these days. 

Somewhere inside the blur, Ryan cuts his hand. All he can see are the trails of blood that stain the carpets as he moves from room to room of an anonymous house. Someone will have to get that cleaned. 

He tries to fix his hand--and it's a deep gash, he knows, he should go to the hospital, he should be a better person, he _should have been a lot of things_ \--and he can't. Someone else ties it up for him in the bathroom. He's never met her before. Z is somewhere at the party, but he can't find her, and anyway, they're not seeing much of each other anymore. 

Ryan does another shot, and thinks about Alex. It's hard to hold a shot glass when your hand is wrapped in strips of a pillowcase, like a giant marshmallow. Ryan gives up and switches to the other hand. His marshmallow hand doesn't want to move anyway.

The second one is for Brendon, that bastard. The beautiful, stupid bastard that Ryan can admit, in his absolutely, fucked-up beyond belief state, is someone he still cares deeply about. He can admit that Brendon's words hurt. He can admit that his jealousy ruined lots of things, and that Brendon is by far the worse casualty. 

The third and final one is for Spencer. 

 

 

 

 

"Hi," Ryan says, when he wakes up for the fourth time. 

Or the first time, depending on how you count it. He's been in and out several times. At least they've taken the tube out from when they were pumping his stomach. At least he's stopped dry heaving and his head is clear and his hand is stitched up and and there's no more glass stuck inside the gash. 

"Hi," Spencer says. He's sitting on a plastic chair that he's pulled up next to Ryan's bed. He has an unopened iPad next to him. 

Spencer holds out his hand, and Ryan inches forward to take it. He manages a ring finger and a pinky, but that's okay. Spencer meets him the rest of the way. 

"I brought you a sock puppet," Spencer says. He holds it up. It's really fucking ugly. There are googly eyes. "I figured it could keep you company while you're in the hospital, and then I can use it to punch you when you're better." 

Ryan can't talk right now, but he can smile. 

He can check forms on boxes, and sign his name on ten thousand papers even though he's technically being committed involuntarily but they can't really prove that he tried to kill himself, so. Ryan signs the papers. It doesn't matter either way. 

"You know I'm not better, right?" Spencer says, during a quiet moment when no one else is around. "I still fuck up. There's no magic cure. This place just helps." 

Ryan nods. He knows. Spencer smelled like vodka sometimes, the same as he did. He knows. 

"For what I'm paying for this shit, it better have a bitchin' pool house," Ryan croaks out. 

"Oh, it does," Spencer says. He's sort of doing this smiling/crying thing, which weirds Ryan out but apparently Spencer cries now, so. It's something he's going to have to get used to. Apparently Ryan cries now, too. They can form a crying club or something. 

The sunlight slants through the window of the hospital room, warm and butter yellow on the tiled floors.

It's really good to see Spencer's face. 

"I'm happy I woke up," Ryan says. His cheeks are damp.

For the first time in a long time, it's not a lie.


End file.
